Sam shrugs, not really having any questions. He does pull out some paper from his pack though and say "What should I tell Hog of this realm?" Hog had wanted to hear about it. Sam's thoughts pretty much could be summed up as "You choose your own down." He knew that wasn't quite as informative as he intended but he didn't know what else to say.
As the others slowly wake up, Elthana screams in her sleep. She is writing around in the hammock, very close to falling out. Sweat breaks out on her brow as she continues to scream.. it is haunting and bone chilling.... She finally stops, her eyes pop open, but she is still caught in her nightmare. "noooo" she whimpers. Then she finally wakes, gasping for breath.
She looks around the room, trying to gain her bearings but can't place where she is, she is too disoriented from the nightmare. She does she her friends though and that calms her enough to ask, "Where, where are we?"
Griff stands near the door and speaks to a member of the crew who comes to check on the noise of screaming, with a short conversation in Auran the crew member seems satisfied and leaves once more.
"Are you being ok? Why is the screaming being happening when you sleep??" A look of concern washes over him as he regards Elthana and raises a feathered brow to the others
At the first sound of screaming Sam grabs his maul and runs to Elthana's side. He is shocked to find her still asleep and in no apparent danger... He is kneeling besides her bunk, maul now set besides him near to hand but unneeded for now.
"Shhhhh... Shhhhh..." he says, his hand reaching out to stroke her hair calmingly but pulled back before he can, unsure how the warrior would react. "Oh! Ok... there you are..." he says as she awakes with a start.
"We're on the bird," Sam answers her. "The giant Spier Umar bird ship... remember? Heading to find a new loadstone to save the treasury.... Bad dream, eh?" Sam gets up onto his feet and takes a step back, half turning away in order to give Elthana a bit of space and privacy as she gathers herself.
Muir jumps, startled, and falls to the ground off his hammock. He quickly gets up and starts waving his staff around vigorously flapping his ears looking for danger “Point me to danger Sam! I am ready”
Elthana sits up as well as she can in a hammock and looks around wide-eyed. She grabs Sam's arm before he walks away from her, grateful for his closeness to help calm her down.
After a few moments, "Yes, ok I remember. And yes, you could say that." She looks to Griff and gives him a weary smile, "Thanks for checking on me, I'm ok. Just.. just a bad dream. You can go back to whatever it is you need to do, I'll.. I'll be ok. Thanks again."
She doesn't want to be rude, but she knows she needs to tell the rest what she started to tell Muir, and though she trusts Griff, he isn't part of her new family and well, she didn't want others of Theair to know.
"you have all been sleeping for a long time, I am thinking around 30 something hours, I can be going to check how long we are having left until we are reaching our destination yes, but I am fearing that we are only half way." With that Griff opens the door, gives the group a nod and leaves the room on the back of Spier Umar. The wind can be heard howling outside as the group can feel the movement under them. Like being on a boat, the bird sways and wobbles every so often, but unlike a boat, it also dives and soars heaving the group up and down too, something you had not felt too much swinging in your hammocks. The door closes, shutting out the deafening wind outside and leaving the group alone, and with some degree of privacy.
Sam pats Elthana's hand reassuringly and then waits until Griff has departed. "Some dream then, huh?" he then prompts her after the little birdie has departed.
Elthana sighs, runs through her hands through her hair then gives Sam a wan smile but proceeds to looks at the rest of you, ending with Muir. "So where should I start?"She asks Muir, but more rhetorically than anything.
"I'm... I'm not an elf. I have only been alive for 25 years, not the 75 I look. I'm a clone. Wow, sure feels odd to say that out loud. I have just learned about this myself, had no idea that I even had brothers or a sister...wait no, that isn't right. Nivara has brothers, I am just me. I am a clone of Nivara. Apparently she was this amazing wizard that was terrified of death of the death of one of her brothers. Her mother was Mori, who has treated me as a daughter since my awakening? arrival? I don't even know how to explain it. I guess I was awful at that point, tried to kill everyone I came in contact with. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself."
Elthana's breathing had quickened again and it takes her a moment to collect herself to continue, she tries to look at Gewyn but can't hold his gaze, so she looks down now, not able to meet anyones eyes. "Nivara made me and I was only to come alive when she died, so the assumption is she did, 25 years ago. We think she died here, which is why I looked familiar to Akiin. My brother Hector is lost here as well as he came here to try and find her very long ago. I'm hoping to find him? Though I don't know what he looks like really..." she trails off, a single tear rolls down her cheek.
Sighing loudly she tries to continue. "So when I awoke, something went wrong as I was not Nivara, just in looks. So they had to remake me, give me new memories a new childhood, all that. They kept me at arms length my entire life...well, until now. But the nightmares? They won't stop. I don't know what to do about them... and they are terrifying. It is Nivara I think, all old and twisted and she wants me." She shudders at the thought of what she just woke from.
She then looks up almost timidly at Sam, "See? My soul is broken."
All at once the group remembers the stumbling words of Morris at the world tree tavern. Vaguely telling Elthana that her soul is not whole and warning that if Elthana were to face Nivara now, then she would surely perish, for only one can truly survive.
Gewyn taps his heel quietly on the ground a few times, trying to think of the right words. Then he says in a low voice, "So you didn't choose your creator. And you didn't choose how you were created. But you've made every other choice since, haven't you? You are here. You are you. Being a willful clone is hardly the only way to be born as someone's mistake. And if that means we don't deserve to be, then..." Gewyn shrugs sadly.
"I can't tell you whether or not you are broken. I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. But I at least think you are in good company."
Muir listens along as something strikes him after listening to Gewyn....He begins to open his mouth but decides to allow the group to digest and finish
Vin sits in somewhat shocked silence, he looks to Elthana with nothing but sadness for what she must have dealt with after finding out recently before he clears his throat "I uhh.. I'm sorry to hear that, knowing that your memories not your own must be awful.. grey is right though, it doesn't take away from who you are, who you have been. This Nivara isn't you, right? Like you said something went wrong or.. or you would be her, is that right?" He holds his head in confusion a little, but the sorrow he feels for Elthana's situation doesn't leave him. "Did sergor and.. no wait, if Mori is Nivara's mother... Hang on, I don't think there's a delicate way to ask this, so I'm sorry if this sounds rude. What are they to you now? Can we trust Sergor? He sent us here."
"What I mean is..." but this too doesn't really lead to anything.
"You look like an elf..." he finally says. "Feel like an elf," he adds as he pokes her gently in the arm. "Act and sound pretty elfy too."
"I'm not all sure what a clone is or if I ever did see one before but you're Elthana. Elf. Clone. Whatever. You are what you have always been to me, right? You ain't hiding a secret face or anything?" Sam says this with a wink over to Gewyn. "I don't know what a soul is, either. Not rightly. Never seen one. Held one. Talked to one. Couldn't tell you who has one or not. People is people, whether they have anything inside them or not doesn't much matter. What matters is how they act. What they do."
Sam shrugs again and adds "You're Elthana. Ain't nothing changed that."
Elthana smiles as warmly as she currently can at Gewyn, truly appreciating the sentiment. Her exhaustion and weariness of the past several days wear on her more than she has probably ever felt.
"I'm not sure if I would exactly be her? Honestly I don't really know or understand that part, but her memories and personality and all that were supposed to go into me and somehow things got messed up? It sounded like it was pretty bad. So they erased all that and gave me something new... which is probably why they had me trained as a monk instead of a wizard like Nivara was."
"I understand the confusion and I'm good with questions."she looks to Muir on this then continues, "I trust them, both of them. Mori is and always has been my mother even if it isn't biologically true. Sergor was... oh boy, this is going to sound weird and I don't know how to sugar coat it, but Nivara's husband. He is just my boss, but knowing now and him telling me everything that had happened... I can see the pain in his face about his loss of Nivara. He sent us here because we have a job to do. We need to save Marblestead." her features get harder at this last part.
She just smiles at Sam, his ways making her feel a tad lighter and she appreciates it.
Muir nods along "So just to recap, if you don't mind Elthana, You are a clone of Nivara who is presumed dead, which is the reason you were awakened. Nivara's mother is Mori who is married to Sergor and have a son Hector as well...Sergor is Nivara and Hector's father, Mori their mother....Both Sergor and Mori being alive for hundreds of years possibly longer ruling over the treasury and coming to these lands in secret for reasons unknown. Nivara came here and presumably died and Hector tried to find her but is missing....Is that a good summary?"
"I don't mind. Honestly it feels good to get all this off my chest. I've never had a group to be able to do this with. My teams in the past well, we were all business, anything personal was kept to yourself, and that included with Mori. She has actually been open with me since telling me, more like a mother than she ever has been. It's nice, but strange at the same time."
"Almost, but a few things. Yes, the only reason I have been awakened is because Nivara has died. Sergor was the husband of Nivara, not Mori. Mori had three children, Nivara, and twins Hector and Granth. Granth died long ago and Hector is lost in Theair, at least that is what we know. They came to these lands in secret? Where did you learn that?"
Muir listens and stores this in his brain because you know....elephants never forget "Where did I learn this? The things you have said, the council not knowing anything about this portal, Sergor's quips to my questions, and also the mentioning of Akiin that Sergor has been coming here for a very long time...I deduced that this has all been done in secret. What was Sergor doing and how involved Mori is, I am unsure of. He floats as you no doubt have seen....How does he do this? Why has he been coming here....questions....so many questions." Muir realizes he was rambling again and looks around the room at his companions "I apologize....I get ahead of myself. I can't help it really....Your stories....Elthana is a clone, Gewyn does not know his parents but is of fae ancestry, Vincent does not know his parents and there's a shroud of mystery which only....well I won't go there again hmmm.....Sam do you know your parents?" Muir rambled on againnot putting together a coherent thought but instead trying to piece together so much he has learned
"So... Is your mom and sister married to the same man then?" Sam asks during all that, very confused. "Is that an Elf thing??"
All the lineage and names and such are spinning around Sam's head like stars around a looney toon that just got hit with an anvil... Sam barely noticed Muir's question to him. "What you say about my parents??" he retorts a bit more hotly than the question deserved.
"Oh, uhh... yeah, of course!" Sam quickly corrects with. "Ma and Pa... They died early on but not as early as some I suppose..."
Muir shakes his head “No no, I mixed them up. Her mother was not married to Sergor. Nivara the sister was married to him….And it seems the spirit of Nivara is haunting Elthana in her dreams…Perhaps Gewyn has caught a glimpse of her in his mirror?” Muir changes his attention to Sam waiting for Gewyn to answer about the mirror “Sam if you’ll indulge me…How old were you when they died?”
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Sam shrugs, not really having any questions. He does pull out some paper from his pack though and say "What should I tell Hog of this realm?" Hog had wanted to hear about it. Sam's thoughts pretty much could be summed up as "You choose your own down." He knew that wasn't quite as informative as he intended but he didn't know what else to say.
As the others slowly wake up, Elthana screams in her sleep. She is writing around in the hammock, very close to falling out. Sweat breaks out on her brow as she continues to scream.. it is haunting and bone chilling.... She finally stops, her eyes pop open, but she is still caught in her nightmare. "noooo" she whimpers. Then she finally wakes, gasping for breath.
She looks around the room, trying to gain her bearings but can't place where she is, she is too disoriented from the nightmare. She does she her friends though and that calms her enough to ask, "Where, where are we?"
Griff stands near the door and speaks to a member of the crew who comes to check on the noise of screaming, with a short conversation in Auran the crew member seems satisfied and leaves once more.
"Are you being ok? Why is the screaming being happening when you sleep??" A look of concern washes over him as he regards Elthana and raises a feathered brow to the others
At the first sound of screaming Sam grabs his maul and runs to Elthana's side. He is shocked to find her still asleep and in no apparent danger... He is kneeling besides her bunk, maul now set besides him near to hand but unneeded for now.
"Shhhhh... Shhhhh..." he says, his hand reaching out to stroke her hair calmingly but pulled back before he can, unsure how the warrior would react. "Oh! Ok... there you are..." he says as she awakes with a start.
"We're on the bird," Sam answers her. "The giant Spier Umar bird ship... remember? Heading to find a new loadstone to save the treasury.... Bad dream, eh?" Sam gets up onto his feet and takes a step back, half turning away in order to give Elthana a bit of space and privacy as she gathers herself.
Muir jumps, startled, and falls to the ground off his hammock. He quickly gets up and starts waving his staff around vigorously flapping his ears looking for danger “Point me to danger Sam! I am ready”
Elthana sits up as well as she can in a hammock and looks around wide-eyed. She grabs Sam's arm before he walks away from her, grateful for his closeness to help calm her down.
After a few moments, "Yes, ok I remember. And yes, you could say that." She looks to Griff and gives him a weary smile, "Thanks for checking on me, I'm ok. Just.. just a bad dream. You can go back to whatever it is you need to do, I'll.. I'll be ok. Thanks again."
She doesn't want to be rude, but she knows she needs to tell the rest what she started to tell Muir, and though she trusts Griff, he isn't part of her new family and well, she didn't want others of Theair to know.
"you have all been sleeping for a long time, I am thinking around 30 something hours, I can be going to check how long we are having left until we are reaching our destination yes, but I am fearing that we are only half way." With that Griff opens the door, gives the group a nod and leaves the room on the back of Spier Umar. The wind can be heard howling outside as the group can feel the movement under them. Like being on a boat, the bird sways and wobbles every so often, but unlike a boat, it also dives and soars heaving the group up and down too, something you had not felt too much swinging in your hammocks. The door closes, shutting out the deafening wind outside and leaving the group alone, and with some degree of privacy.
Sam pats Elthana's hand reassuringly and then waits until Griff has departed. "Some dream then, huh?" he then prompts her after the little birdie has departed.
Elthana sighs, runs through her hands through her hair then gives Sam a wan smile but proceeds to looks at the rest of you, ending with Muir. "So where should I start?" She asks Muir, but more rhetorically than anything.
"I'm... I'm not an elf. I have only been alive for 25 years, not the 75 I look. I'm a clone. Wow, sure feels odd to say that out loud. I have just learned about this myself, had no idea that I even had brothers or a sister...wait no, that isn't right. Nivara has brothers, I am just me. I am a clone of Nivara. Apparently she was this amazing wizard that was terrified of death of the death of one of her brothers. Her mother was Mori, who has treated me as a daughter since my awakening? arrival? I don't even know how to explain it. I guess I was awful at that point, tried to kill everyone I came in contact with. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself."
Elthana's breathing had quickened again and it takes her a moment to collect herself to continue, she tries to look at Gewyn but can't hold his gaze, so she looks down now, not able to meet anyones eyes. "Nivara made me and I was only to come alive when she died, so the assumption is she did, 25 years ago. We think she died here, which is why I looked familiar to Akiin. My brother Hector is lost here as well as he came here to try and find her very long ago. I'm hoping to find him? Though I don't know what he looks like really..." she trails off, a single tear rolls down her cheek.
Sighing loudly she tries to continue. "So when I awoke, something went wrong as I was not Nivara, just in looks. So they had to remake me, give me new memories a new childhood, all that. They kept me at arms length my entire life...well, until now. But the nightmares? They won't stop. I don't know what to do about them... and they are terrifying. It is Nivara I think, all old and twisted and she wants me." She shudders at the thought of what she just woke from.
She then looks up almost timidly at Sam, "See? My soul is broken."
All at once the group remembers the stumbling words of Morris at the world tree tavern. Vaguely telling Elthana that her soul is not whole and warning that if Elthana were to face Nivara now, then she would surely perish, for only one can truly survive.
Gewyn taps his heel quietly on the ground a few times, trying to think of the right words. Then he says in a low voice, "So you didn't choose your creator. And you didn't choose how you were created. But you've made every other choice since, haven't you? You are here. You are you. Being a willful clone is hardly the only way to be born as someone's mistake. And if that means we don't deserve to be, then..." Gewyn shrugs sadly.
"I can't tell you whether or not you are broken. I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. But I at least think you are in good company."
Muir listens along as something strikes him after listening to Gewyn....He begins to open his mouth but decides to allow the group to digest and finish
Vin sits in somewhat shocked silence, he looks to Elthana with nothing but sadness for what she must have dealt with after finding out recently before he clears his throat "I uhh.. I'm sorry to hear that, knowing that your memories not your own must be awful.. grey is right though, it doesn't take away from who you are, who you have been. This Nivara isn't you, right? Like you said something went wrong or.. or you would be her, is that right?" He holds his head in confusion a little, but the sorrow he feels for Elthana's situation doesn't leave him. "Did sergor and.. no wait, if Mori is Nivara's mother... Hang on, I don't think there's a delicate way to ask this, so I'm sorry if this sounds rude. What are they to you now? Can we trust Sergor? He sent us here."
"I..." Sam starts but trails off.
"What I mean is..." but this too doesn't really lead to anything.
"You look like an elf..." he finally says. "Feel like an elf," he adds as he pokes her gently in the arm. "Act and sound pretty elfy too."
"I'm not all sure what a clone is or if I ever did see one before but you're Elthana. Elf. Clone. Whatever. You are what you have always been to me, right? You ain't hiding a secret face or anything?" Sam says this with a wink over to Gewyn. "I don't know what a soul is, either. Not rightly. Never seen one. Held one. Talked to one. Couldn't tell you who has one or not. People is people, whether they have anything inside them or not doesn't much matter. What matters is how they act. What they do."
Sam shrugs again and adds "You're Elthana. Ain't nothing changed that."
Elthana smiles as warmly as she currently can at Gewyn, truly appreciating the sentiment. Her exhaustion and weariness of the past several days wear on her more than she has probably ever felt.
"I'm not sure if I would exactly be her? Honestly I don't really know or understand that part, but her memories and personality and all that were supposed to go into me and somehow things got messed up? It sounded like it was pretty bad. So they erased all that and gave me something new... which is probably why they had me trained as a monk instead of a wizard like Nivara was."
"I understand the confusion and I'm good with questions." she looks to Muir on this then continues, "I trust them, both of them. Mori is and always has been my mother even if it isn't biologically true. Sergor was... oh boy, this is going to sound weird and I don't know how to sugar coat it, but Nivara's husband. He is just my boss, but knowing now and him telling me everything that had happened... I can see the pain in his face about his loss of Nivara. He sent us here because we have a job to do. We need to save Marblestead." her features get harder at this last part.
She just smiles at Sam, his ways making her feel a tad lighter and she appreciates it.
Muir nods along "So just to recap, if you don't mind Elthana, You are a clone of Nivara who is presumed dead, which is the reason you were awakened. Nivara's mother is Mori who is married to Sergor and have a son Hector as well...Sergor is Nivara and Hector's father, Mori their mother....Both Sergor and Mori being alive for hundreds of years possibly longer ruling over the treasury and coming to these lands in secret for reasons unknown. Nivara came here and presumably died and Hector tried to find her but is missing....Is that a good summary?"
"I don't mind. Honestly it feels good to get all this off my chest. I've never had a group to be able to do this with. My teams in the past well, we were all business, anything personal was kept to yourself, and that included with Mori. She has actually been open with me since telling me, more like a mother than she ever has been. It's nice, but strange at the same time."
"Almost, but a few things. Yes, the only reason I have been awakened is because Nivara has died. Sergor was the husband of Nivara, not Mori. Mori had three children, Nivara, and twins Hector and Granth. Granth died long ago and Hector is lost in Theair, at least that is what we know. They came to these lands in secret? Where did you learn that?"
Muir listens and stores this in his brain because you know....elephants never forget "Where did I learn this? The things you have said, the council not knowing anything about this portal, Sergor's quips to my questions, and also the mentioning of Akiin that Sergor has been coming here for a very long time...I deduced that this has all been done in secret. What was Sergor doing and how involved Mori is, I am unsure of. He floats as you no doubt have seen....How does he do this? Why has he been coming here....questions....so many questions." Muir realizes he was rambling again and looks around the room at his companions "I apologize....I get ahead of myself. I can't help it really....Your stories....Elthana is a clone, Gewyn does not know his parents but is of fae ancestry, Vincent does not know his parents and there's a shroud of mystery which only....well I won't go there again hmmm.....Sam do you know your parents?" Muir rambled on againnot putting together a coherent thought but instead trying to piece together so much he has learned
"So... Is your mom and sister married to the same man then?" Sam asks during all that, very confused. "Is that an Elf thing??"
All the lineage and names and such are spinning around Sam's head like stars around a looney toon that just got hit with an anvil... Sam barely noticed Muir's question to him. "What you say about my parents??" he retorts a bit more hotly than the question deserved.
"Oh, uhh... yeah, of course!" Sam quickly corrects with. "Ma and Pa... They died early on but not as early as some I suppose..."
Muir shakes his head “No no, I mixed them up. Her mother was not married to Sergor. Nivara the sister was married to him….And it seems the spirit of Nivara is haunting Elthana in her dreams…Perhaps Gewyn has caught a glimpse of her in his mirror?” Muir changes his attention to Sam waiting for Gewyn to answer about the mirror “Sam if you’ll indulge me…How old were you when they died?”